Department of Sport and Exercise Science - MRes Science Projects 2016/17

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1 Department of Sport and Exercise Science - MRes Science Projects 2016/17 The Master of Research (MRes) Science course is a postgraduate course that will provide applicants with an opportunity to focus their research interests on one or two areas of science whilst also giving them the opportunity to work towards being able to translate their learning into research related outputs (e.g. submission for a peerreviewed publication, peer reviewed research / knowledge transfer grant application, presentations). The MRes Science can be studied either full time (one year) or part time (two years) and will enable students to develop a wide variety of skills, experience, and competence throughout their studies. The MRes will provide a thorough grounding should students consider moving towards Doctoral (PhD) studies, or pursue research related activities as a career. Further information can be obtained at The course is taught within the Faculty of Science and within the Department of Sport and Exercise Science. The projects for the September 2016 or January 2017 intake are shown below: Project Title: The role of exercise testing in elective and non-elective surgical screening and the effect of exercise prescription in managing surgical risk. Project Brief: Pre-surgical exercise testing is increasingly commonplace in UK hospitals to enhance post-surgical management, however there is sparse evidence of exercise interventions to enhance post-surgical prognosis. This project aims to investigate the optimisation of exercise to enhance post-operative outcomes. Such projects may involve patient groups or apparently healthy participants for pilot study purposes. Project Title: The interaction of nutritional supplementation and exercise on health outcomes in individuals with chronic disease. Project Brief: Areas of particular interest include optimising protein/creatine supplementation in patients with sarcopenia secondary to another chronic disease, mechanisms of effect of dietary nitrate on exercise physiology in patients with heart disease, and combinations of exercise/functional foods on exercise capacity in patients with peripheral arterial disease. Project Title: Physical activity for type II diabetes; aerobic vs resistance training in lean vs obese patients with diabetes. Project Brief: This project aims to investigate optimal exercise training procedures for enhancing health gains through exercise for patients with type II diabetes with varying morphology.

2 Project Title: Evaluating exercise referral services. Project Brief: Structured and supervised exercise has been demonstrated to improve numerous health outcomes.this project aims to investigate models of best practice and identify areas requiring optimisation in community exercise referral services, possibly with an emphasis on a specific referred medical condition. Project Title: The use of exercise training for patients with long term conditions. Project Brief:This project aims to investigate the efficacy of exercise provision for patients with cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, cancer, stroke, long term neurological conditions or at risk of falls, such as increasing PA in patients with chronic heart failure, increasing PA in DESMOND attendees, enhancing exercise maintenance in COPD and facilitating graduation from phase III to phase 4 in patients with cardiovascular disease. This project could also investigate the feasibility of using established clinical exercise services for other non-commissioned clinical disorders/services. Project Title: Ego-depletion and choking under pressure in sport Supervisor: Dr Denise M Hill Project Brief: While it has been established that ego-depletion can lead to performance decrement, its specific role within choking under pressure, has yet to be explored. Accordingly, This project will aim to examine whether ego-depletion, and in particular, time-lapsed ego-depletion, is associated with acute sporting performance failure (i.e., choking) under pressure Project Title: A comparative investigation of under-performance and choking under pressure. Supervisor: Dr Denise M Hill Project Brief: A recent debate has emerged in the sport psychology literature regarding the conceptual and experiential differences between an underperformance and choking under pressure. Therefore, this project aims to explore whether the embodied experience of choking under pressure (across performance domains) is differential to an under-performance. Project Title: Identifying trends in football referee performance and decision making Project Brief: The referee is a continual topic of debate and contention. The referees in the Premier League are routinely analysed and reported upon by the media and also those in leadership and managerial roles related to refereeing. This project will explore these performances in greater detail utilsing a current data set as

3 well as interviews in order to chart, analyse and explain any underlying trends in referee performance across five Premier League seasons. Project title: Societal, cultural and systemic abuse: A figurational view of the civilising process and the treatment of umpires and referees. Project brief: The civilising process tells us that sport should become more rule governed and civil, mirroring society, over time. A figurational view of this in sport can allow better understanding of human actions and behaviours in certain situations. Whether this is spectators, coaches or players, all of these individuals can affect the performance of the match official. This project will consider the impact on match officials and any changes this may drive in macro social structures. Project title: Identifying talent: A study into the factors that affect and influence talent detection and development in sport Project brief: The aim of the project is to consider the talent pathways of a number of sports in order to obtain and analyse current structures and methods of best practice employed in sport when detecting talented young performers. This project will be multidisciplinary and will explore the systems and procedures in place through a comparative analysis of differing sports. Project Title: Multi segment neuromuscular changes during impact in response to anticipated and unanticipated post landing movement direction Supervisor: Dr Chris Mills Project Brief: In order to control landings the central nervous system must provide effective strategies involving the adaption of both the neuromuscular and kinematic parameters to adequately attenuate impact forces and to control joint loading.the task specific requirements of a landing that requires an immediate re-direction of the body s centre of mass may require different pre landing and landing mechanics. The current project will seek to analyse and understand how neuromuscular control of movement patterns during flight and landing are modulated depending upon anticipated and unanticipated post landing movement direction. Project Title: The Perceptual-Motor Control of Interpersonal Interactions Supervisor: Dr Chris Mills Project Brief: The ability to move safely through cluttered environments within specific (either self or externally imposed) spatio-temporal constraints is of fundamental importance to daily behaviour across the human life-span (e.g., crossing a road, or exiting a building in an emergency). Despite between-person interactions being a hallmark of day-to-day behaviour (i.e., a busy pedestrian crossing), there is currently minimal understanding on how the presence of other

4 persons influences the ability of people to navigate through cluttered environments whilst under differing time constraints. The current project will seek to address this issue through the development of a novel research paradigm for the study of interpersonal interactions. It is intended that the movements of two persons will be measured using a combination of gaze and kinematic measures. Project Title: The embodiment and acquisition of perceptual skill Project Brief: Grounded in the theory of affordances, and related research, projects in this area will seek to examine how changes in action capabilities impact upon perceptual skill accuracy. Project Title: Examining the role of situational context on perceptual skill Project Brief: Traditionally, much of the research on perceptual skill has tended to focus on discrete events in time (e.g., anticipation of a tennis serve action), rather than information pick up across longer time -scales (e.g., game context). Projects in this area will therefore seek to examine how information is exploited by sportspeople across different interacting time scales. Project Title: Gaze control during everyday interpersonal interactions Project Brief: The majority of person perception research in different domains has tended to examine behaviour by simulating one person through an image, avatar or video projection. In order to advance understanding, research in this area will seek to examine real time situations to understand the mechanisms of gaze control that occur during daily interpersonal interactions. Project Title: Social attention during interpersonal interactions and sport & Prof Vasu Reddy (Psychology) Project Title: The effect of bra componentry on the function, support, fit and comfort of sports bras Supervisor: Dr Jenny Burbage Project Brief: Little research has been conducted that investigates the effect of altering bra componentry on sports bra function. By assessing breast biomechanics and considering the effect of different bra constructions on breast health we can gain a greater understanding of effective sports bra design. The aim of this project is to manipulate sports bra designs and test them biomechanically to further our knowledge in this area and help inform sports bra design. Project Title: Breast biomechanics during horse riding

5 Supervisor: Dr Jenny Burbage Project Brief: Previous research has quantified multi-dimensional breast biomechanics during everyday and sporting activities (e.g. walking, running, jumping), however breast biomechanics during horse riding has been largely ignored, despite the vigorous vertical movements involved. There is evidence that horse riding activity can lead to breast and upper body pain, especially for largerbreasted riders, however the effect on posture and muscle activity has not been explored. The current project would aim to utilise current methodologies to investigate this problem within horse riding. END OF DOCUMENT